I've noticed that during Kansas University home basketball games a trumpeter from the band always goes down on the floor before the national anthem. I was wondering if that is a tradition or what it means.

KU band director Tom Stidham supplied this answer: "We send the trumpeter down to give the starting note for 'The Star-Spangled Banner' to the singer. Whoever sings it doesn't have any other means of getting the pitch and getting a bearing of the key we're in."